Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  "Eh?" Fraser jerked erect.

  "'S a fact. Also, my man showed the building staff, elevator pilots and so on, pictures of these women, and a couple of 'em were remembered as having come to see Kennedy."

  "Shortly before they--fell in love?"

  "Well, that I can't be sure of. You know how people are about remembering dates. But it's possible."

  Fraser shook his dark head. "It's unbelievable," he said. "I thought Svengali was outworn melodrama."

  "I know something about hypnotism, Colin. It won't do anything like what you think happened to those girls."

  Fraser got out his pipe and fumbled tobacco into it. "I think," he said, "I'm going to call on Dr. Robert Kennedy myself."

  "Take it easy, boy," said Martinez. "You been reading too many weird stories; you'll just get tossed out on your can."

  Fraser tried to smile. It was hard--Judy wouldn't answer his calls and letters any more. "Well," he said, "it'll be in a worthy cause."

  * * * * *

  The elevator let him out on the nineteenth floor. It held four big suites, with the corridor running between them. He studied the frosted-glass doors. On one side was the Eagle Publishing Company and Frank & Dayles, Brokers. On the other was the Messenger Advertising Service, and Sentiment, Inc. He entered their door and stood in a quiet, oak-paneled reception room. Behind the railing were a couple of desks, a young woman working at each, and two burly men who sat boredly reading magazines.

  The pretty girl, obviously the receptionist, looked up as Fraser approached and gave him a professional smile. "Yes, sir?" she asked.

  "I'd like to see Dr. Kennedy, please," he said, trying hard to be casual.

  "Do you have an appointment, sir?"

  "No, but it's urgent."

  "I'm sorry, sir; Dr. Kennedy is very busy. He can't see anybody except his regular patients and research subjects."

  "Look, take him in this note, will you? Thanks."

  Fraser sat uneasily for some minutes, wondering if he'd worded the note correctly. I must see you about Miss Judy Harkness. Important. Well, what the devil else could you say?

  The receptionist came out again. "Dr. Kennedy can spare you a few minutes, sir," she said. "Go right on in."

  "Thanks." Fraser slouched toward the inner door. The two men lowered their magazines to follow him with watchful eyes.

  There was a big, handsomely-furnished office inside, with a door beyond that must lead to the laboratory. Kennedy looked up from some papers and rose, holding out his hand. He was a medium-sized man, rather plump, graying hair brushed thickly back from a broad, heavy face behind rimless glasses. "Yes?" His voice was low and pleasant. "What can I do for you?"

  "My name's Fraser." The visitor sat down and accepted a cigarette. Best to act urbanely. "I know Miss Harkness well. I understand you made some encephalographic studies of her."

  "Indeed?" Kennedy looked annoyed, and Fraser recalled that Judy had been asked not to tell anyone. "I'm not sure; I would have to consult my records first." He wasn't admitting anything, thought Fraser.

  "Look," said the engineer, "there's been a marked change in Miss Harkness recently. I know enough psychology to be certain that such changes don't happen overnight without cause. I wanted to consult you."

  "I'm not her psychiatrist," said Kennedy coldly. "Now if you will excuse me, I really have a lot to do--"

  "All right," said Fraser. There was no menace in his tones, only a weariness. "If you insist, I'll play it dirty. Such abrupt changes indicate mental instability. But I know she was perfectly sane before. It begins to look as if your experiments may have--injured her mind. If so, I should have to report you for malpractice."

  Kennedy flushed. "I am a licensed psychiatrist," he said, "and any other doctor will confirm that Miss Harkness is still in mental health. If you tried to get an investigation started, you would only be wasting your own time and that of the authorities. She herself will testify that no harm was done to her; no compulsion applied; and that you are an infernal busybody with some delusions of your own. Good afternoon."

  "Ah," said Fraser, "so she was here."

  Kennedy pushed a button. His men entered. "Show this gentleman the way out, please," he said.

  Fraser debated whether to put up a fight, decided it was futile, and went out between the two others. When he got to the street, he found he was shaking, and badly in need of a drink.

  * * * * *

  Fraser asked, "Jim, did you ever read Trilby?"

  Sworsky's round, freckled face lifted to regard him. "Years ago," he answered. "What of it?"

  "Tell me something. Is it possible--even theoretically possible--to do what Svengali did? Change emotional attitudes, just like that." Fraser snapped his fingers.

  "I don't know," said Sworsky. "Nuclear cross-sections are more in my line. But offhand, I should imagine it might be done ... sometime in the far future. Thought-habits, associational-patterns, the labeling of this as good and that as bad, seem to be matters of established neural paths. If you could selectively alter the polarization of individual neurones--But it's a pretty remote prospect; we hardly know a thing about the brain today."

  He studied his friend sympathetically. "I know it's tough to get jilted," he said, "but don't go off your trolley about it."

  "I could stand it if someone else had gotten her in the usual kind of way," said Fraser thinly. "But this--Look, let me tell you all I've found out."

  Sworsky shook his head at the end of the story. "That's a mighty wild speculation," he murmured. "I'd forget it if I were you."

  "Did you know Kennedy's old partner? Gavotti, at Chicago."

  "Sure, I met him a few times. Nice old guy, very unworldly, completely wrapped up in his work. He got interested in neurology from the physics angle toward the end of his life, and contributed a lot to cybernetics. What of it?"

  "I don't know," said Fraser; "I just don't know. But do me a favor, will you, Jim? Judy won't see me at all, but she knows you and likes you. Ask her to dinner or something. Insist that she come. Then you and your wife find out--whatever you can. Just exactly how she feels about the whole business. What her attitudes are toward everything."

  "The name is Sworsky, not Holmes. But sure, I'll do what I can, if you'll promise to try and get rid of this fixation. You ought to see a head-shrinker yourself, you know."

  In vino veritas--sometimes too damn much veritas.

  * * * * *

  Toward the end of the evening, Judy was talking freely, if not quite coherently. "I cared a lot for Colin," she said. "It was pretty wonderful having him around. He's a grand guy. Only Matt--I don't know. Matt hasn't got half of what Colin has; Matt's a single-track mind. I'm afraid I'm just going to be an ornamental convenience to him. Only if you've ever been so you got all dizzy when someone was around, and thought about him all the time he was away--well, that's how he is. Nothing else matters."

  "Colin's gotten a funny obsession," said Sworsky cautiously. "He thinks Kennedy hypnotized you for Snyder. I keep telling him it's impossible, but he can't get over the idea."

  "Oh, no, no, no," she said with too much fervor. "It's nothing like that. I'll tell you just what happened. We had those two measuring sessions; it was kind of dull but nothing else. And then the third time Kennedy did put me under hypnosis--he called it that, at least. I went to sleep and woke up about an hour later and he sent me home. I felt all good inside, happy, and shlo--slowly I began to see what Matt meant to me.

  "I called him up that evening. He said Kennedy's machine did speed up people's minds for a short while, sometimes, so they decided quick-like what they'd've worked out anyway. Kennedy is--I don't know. It's funny how ordinary he seemed at first. But when you get to know him, he's like--God, almost. He's strong and wise and good. He--" Her voice trailed off and she sat looking foolishly at her glass.

  "You know," said Sworsky, "perhaps Colin is right after all."

  "Don't say that!" She jumped up and slapped his face. "Kennedy's good, I
tell you! All you little lice sitting here making sly remarks behind his back, and he's so, much bigger than all of you and--" She broke into tears and stormed out of the apartment.

  Sworsky reported the affair to Fraser. "I wonder," he said. "It doesn't seem natural, I'll agree. But what can anybody do? The police?"

  "I've tried," said Fraser dully. "They laughed. When I insisted, I damn near got myself jugged. That's no use. The trouble is, none of the people who've been under the machine will testify against Kennedy. He fixes it so they worship him."

  "I still think you're crazy. There must be a simpler hypothesis; I refuse to believe your screwy notions without some real evidence. But what are you going to do now?"

  "Well," said Fraser with a tautness in his voice, "I've got several thousand dollars saved up, and Juan Martinez will help. Ever hear the fable about the lion? He licked hell out of the bear and the tiger and the rhinoceros, but a little gnat finally drove him nuts. Maybe I can be the gnat." He shook his head. "But I'll have to hurry. The wedding's only six weeks off."

  3

  It can be annoying to be constantly shadowed; to have nasty gossip about you spreading through the places where you work and live; to find your tires slashed; to be accosted by truculent drunks when you stop in for a quick one; to have loud horns blow under your window every night. And it doesn't do much good to call the police; your petty tormentors always fade out of sight.

  Fraser was sitting in his room some two weeks later, trying unsuccessfully to concentrate on matrix algebra, when the phone rang. He never picked it up without a fluttering small hope that it might be Judy, and it never was. This time it was a man's voice: "Mr. Fraser?"

  "Yeah," he grunted. "Wha'dya want?"

  "This is Robert Kennedy. I'd like to talk to you."

  Fraser's heart sprang in his ribs, but he held his voice stiff. "Go on, then. Talk."

  "I want you to come up to my place. We may be having a long conversation."

  "Mmmm--well--" It was more than he had allowed himself to hope for, but he remained curt: "Okay. But a full report of this business, and what I think you're doing, is in the hands of several people. If anything should happen to me--"

  "You've been reading too many hard-boileds," said Kennedy. "Nothing will happen. Anyway, I have a pretty good idea who those people are; I can hire detectives of my own, you know."

  "I'll come over, then." Fraser hung up and realized, suddenly, that he was sweating.

  The night air was cool as he walked down the street. He paused for a moment, feeling the city like a huge impersonal machine around him, grinding and grinding. Human civilization had grown too big, he thought. It was beyond anyone's control; it had taken on a will of its own and was carrying a race which could no longer guide it. Sometimes--reading the papers, or listening to the radio, or just watching the traffic go by like a river of steel--a man could feel horribly helpless.

  He took the subway to Kennedy's address, a swank apartment in the lower Fifties. He was admitted by the psychiatrist in person; no one else was around.

  "I assume," said Kennedy, "that you don't have some wild idea of pulling a gun on me. That would accomplish nothing except to get you in trouble."

  "No," said Fraser, "I'll be good." His eyes wandered about the living room. One wall was covered with books which looked used; there were some quality reproductions, a Capehart, and fine, massive furniture. It was a tasteful layout. He looked a little more closely at three pictures on the mantel: a middle-aged woman and two young men in uniform.

  "My wife," said Kennedy, "and my boys. They're all dead. Would you like a drink?"

  "No. I came to talk."

  "I'm not Satan, you know," said Kennedy. "I like books and music, good wine, good conversation. I'm as human as you are, only I have a purpose."

  Fraser sat down and began charging his pipe. "Go ahead," he said. "I'm listening."

  Kennedy pulled a chair over to face him. The big smooth countenance behind the rimless glasses held little expression. "Why have you been annoying me?" he asked.

  "I?" Fraser lifted his brows.

  Kennedy made an impatient gesture. "Let's not chop words. There are no witnesses tonight. I intend to talk freely, and want you to do the same. I know that you've got Martinez sufficiently convinced to help you with this very childish persecution-campaign. What do you hope to get out of it?"

  "I want my girl back," said Fraser tonelessly. "I was hoping my nuisance-value--"

  * * * * *

  Kennedy winced a bit. "You know, I'm damned sorry about that. It's the one aspect of my work which I hate. I'd like you to believe that I'm not just a scientific procurer. Actually, I have to satisfy the minor desires of my clients, so they'll stay happy and agree to my major wishes. It's the plain truth that those women have been only the minutest fraction of my job."

  "Nevertheless, you're a free-wheeling son, doing something like that--"

  "Really, now, what's so horrible about it? Those girls are in love--the normal, genuine article. It's not any kind of zombie state, or whatever your overheated imagination has thought up. They're entirely sane, unharmed, and happy. In fact, happiness of that kind is so rare in this world that if I wanted to, I could pose as their benefactor."

  "You've got a machine," said Fraser; "it changes the mind. As far as I'm concerned, that's as gross a violation of liberty as throwing somebody into a concentration camp."

  "How free do you think anyone is? You're born with a fixed heredity. Environment molds you like clay. Your society teaches you what and how to think. A million tiny factors, all depending on blind, uncontrollable chance, determine the course of your life--including your love-life.... Well, we needn't waste any time on philosophy. Go on, ask some questions. I admit I've hurt you--unwittingly, to be sure--but I do want to make amends."

  "Your machine, then," said Fraser. "How did you get it? How does it work."

  "I was practicing in Chicago," said Kennedy, "and collaborating on the side with Gavotti. How much do you know of cybernetics? I don't mean computers and automata, which are only one aspect of the field; I mean control and communication, in the animal as well as in the machine."

  "Well, I've read Wiener's books, and studied Shannon's work, too." Despite himself, Fraser was thawing, just a trifle. "It's exciting stuff. Communications-theory seems to be basic, in biology and psychology as well as in electronics."

  "Quite. The future may remember Wiener as the Galileo of neurology. If Gavotti's work ever gets published, he'll be considered the Newton. So far, frankly, I've suppressed it. He died suddenly, just when his machine was completed and he was getting ready to publish his results. Nobody but I knew anything more than rumors; he was inclined to be secretive till he had a fait accompli on hand. I realized what an opportunity had been given me, and took it; I brought the machine here without saying much to anyone."

  Kennedy leaned back in his chair. "I imagine it was mostly luck which took Gavotti and me so far," he went on. "We made a long series of improbably good guesses, and thus telescoped a century of work into a decade. If I were religious, I'd be down on my knees, thanking the Lord for putting this thing of the future into my hands."

  "Or the devil," said Fraser.

  Briefly, anger flitted across Kennedy's face. "I grant you, the machine is a terrible power, but it's harmless to a man if it's used properly--as I have used it. I'm not going to tell you just how it works; to be perfectly honest, I only understand a fraction of its theory and its circuits myself. But look, you know something of encephalography. The various basic rhythms of the brain have been measured. The standard method is already so sensitive that it can detect abnormalities like a developing tumor or a strong emotional disturbance, that will give trouble unless corrected. Half of Gavotti's machine is a still more delicate encephalograph. It can measure and analyze the minute variations in electrical pulses corresponding to the basic emotional states. It won't read thoughts, no; but once calibrated for a given individual, it will tell you i
f he's happy, sorrowful, angry, disgusted, afraid--any fundamental neuro-glandular condition, or any combination of them."

  He paused. "All right," said Fraser. "What else does it do?"

  "It does not make monsters," said Kennedy. "Look, the specific emotional reaction to a given stimulus is, in the normal individual, largely a matter of conditioned reflex, instilled by social environment or the accidental associations of his life.

  "Anyone in decent health will experience fear in the presence of danger; desire in the presence of a sexual object, and so on. That's basic biology, and the machine can't change that. But most of our evaluations are learned. For instance, to an American the word 'mother' has powerful emotional connotations, while to a Samoan it means nothing very exciting. You had to develop a taste for liquor, tobacco, coffee--in fact most of what you consume. If you're in love with a particular woman, it's a focusing of the general sexual libido on her, brought about by the symbolizing part of your mind: she means something to you. There are cultures without romantic love, you know. And so on. All these specific, conditioned reactions can be changed."

  "How?"

  * * * * *

  Kennedy thought for a moment "The encephalographic part of the machine measures the exact pulsations in the individual corresponding to the various emotional reactions. It takes me about four hours to determine those with the necessary precision; then I have to make statistical analyses of the data, to winnow out random variations. Thereafter I put the subject in a state of light hypnosis--that's only to increase suggestibility, and make the process faster. As I pronounce the words and names I'm interested in, the machine feeds back the impulses corresponding to the emotions I want: a sharply-focused beam on the brain center concerned.

  "For instance, suppose you were an alcoholic and I wanted to cure you. I'd put you in hypnosis and stand there whispering 'wine, whisky, beer, gin,' and so on; meanwhile, the machine would be feeding the impulses corresponding to your reactions of hate, fear, and disgust into your brain. You'd come out unchanged, except that your appetite for alcohol would be gone; you could, in fact, come out hating the stuff so much that you'd join the Prohibition Party--though, in actual practice, it would probably be enough just to give you a mild aversion."